


Infected

by TheBoxQueen



Series: Crew-10613 [2]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28420908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBoxQueen/pseuds/TheBoxQueen
Summary: A new step into the Crew-10613 universe, an Among Us inspired storyline where each crew of 10 works under the MIRA Corporation and faces the impending battle of an intelligent alien parasite.Something's amiss on the Skeld. Despite only one infected being the norm, the bioscanners came up with two alien lifeforms among them. And it's up to Box to lead her crew to victory and safety... no matter who they have to introduce to the airlock.
Series: Crew-10613 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081616
Kudos: 1





	Infected

Where were her bones?

That wasn’t normally a question she had to ask herself, but since she did have to ask, it left a positively sour taste in her mouth.

She had only just set the ship to autopilot and gotten out of the cockpit. She followed all of the steps she knew she had to; check that all systems on the ship were working and list any instabilities for the crew to fix, ensure that checklists were transmitted to all crewmembers, and then radio in to HQ to get the scan. Recent technology had been implemented to identify if members of the crew had been infected, but it wasn’t yet advanced enough to identify who it was on the spot. So, it was normally up to the crew of the ship to figure out who was taken over by the parasites and show them the airlock before they landed.

This wasn’t Box’s first rodeo. She had been on this ship, The Skeld, multiple times before. She dreaded the transition she’d have to make if she got Code Red from HQ. Every time the transmission read off “Code Red - 2”, she knew she had to break the news to her crew that two of her ten were already lost and taken over. The reason she had gotten herself to the role of Commander was her unwavering determination to use evidence around her to deduce who exactly was pretending to be her crew, faking her tasks, sabotaging her ship, and trying to slaughter her people. She was lucky enough to not have had too many incidents, but there were times she had led a pleading friend to the airlock only to check back with HQ and see that the number of inhuman life forms had gone down by one. The death and grief was part of the job at this point, but that didn’t stop her from dreading that Code Red, the signal that turned this pleasant space ride into a game of life and death.

It would be such an enjoyable journey if those damned parasites just left them alone.

But now, she felt wrong. Where were her bones? If she looked down at her arms, they still bent and moved to her will, but it felt as though something writhed beneath her skin, tensed up to retain a human form. It felt as if a great rift had formed in her abdomen, a closed hole filled with sensations that organs should not give. She could feel it… something spastically pushing at her hands, making her lunge at her fellow crewmembers and lose her balance occasionally. And it felt like something was pounding at the doors to her mind, demanding to be let in. Where were her bones? They were long since gone, dissolved, absorbed, replaced.

_“I’m not doing this. You will not control me. There’s still hope here.”_

It had been ten tense minutes since she had made the announcement to her crew. It had shocked her too, to see a “Code Red – 2” on her transmission dash. There was usually only one person that was infected, and she had never heard of two people getting infected in a crew. If she had a stomach, it would have been filled with dread. But she felt that it was gone, and no matter how strange it was, the bioscanners didn’t lie.

Telling her crew that there were two people infected was really screwed with her. She more than understood the fear in their eyes, that gnawing fright that anyone could die to anyone’s hands, now that there were two monsters disguised as their friends. But as they split up to begin doing their tasks, not a fearful glance had been thrown her way. Members of her crew strolled alongside her as they went from task to task, making small repairs and maintaining their systems, before splitting off for a new objective. And with every step, her arms wanted to lose their shape and snap their necks. Her body wanted to split open and… eat. So, she began to walk the other way, no matter who was approaching her, and it made her insides writhe with fury.

Death hung promising in the air, no matter how distanced she was from others. She knew the other infected roamed with everyone, patiently searching for the perfect time to strike. She was already lost, and whoever they were, they were already lost. But she wasn’t gone, like the other. She could still save them. Save them all.

And so, she pressed the button. The large, red button centered in their cafeteria, only for the calling of an emergency meeting. Her crew came rushing in, taking their places, their faces marred with worry.

How was she supposed to tell them? There was no easy way into a revelation like this.

She cleared her throat. “I’ve called you all here because I have some very important information regarding our current situation.”

“Uh oh, Box’s got the serious voice,” joked one of her crew; Mack, commissioned a white suit, leaned against the table. “We’re just checking in, right? You can’t go stealing my job, commander. I was _going_ to do it, promise!” He laughed, some others joining in. “I did attendance, by the way. Everyone’s here.”

Her hand twitched, the coiled flesh longing to lose its shape, and she scowled down at her appendage before returning her attention to her anxious crew. One of them saw the uneasiness in her face; her friend Jess, in his dark blue uniform. “No, stop. Look.” Her somber grimness spread around the whole table, infectious and consuming as any parasite. “Commander, what happened? D-do we already know who it is? Um, who they are?”

Her body yearned for her to stop, to shut up and distract the crew. But now she wore the eyes of the parasite, eyes crafted to see in the dark and to communicate with others of its species. She could feel the being hiding behind her face, trying to move in the tiniest of twitches to signal the other. And with the twitches, she realized she could spot other infected movement. She glanced around the table, and caught a twitch. More distorting flesh under the guise of a human, a movement invisible to the human eye. It was a response to the signal her own parasite had sent out, and it was all the confirmation she needed.

“Yes. I know who the impostors on this ship are.”

Everyone tensed, wondering who was on the chopping block, or who of their friends was first to go. Her body convulsed, begging her to not speak. But it couldn’t reach her.

_“I won’t let you hurt my crew, you fiend.”_

“Me. I am one of them.”

“… you what?” Luci blurted, the shadow in black.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay,” Mack remarked, trying to lighten the mood. “I understand you like to take things lightly, _commander_. But we know better than to joke about that! … C’mon.”

“Do you really think this is a joke? In this kind of situation? What part of ANY of what I just said made you think this is a joke?” Past her irritation, she saw it again. Another convulsive twitch, in a hand that wasn’t hers. Her own parasite eyes told her that the other impostor was getting nervous.

“B-but, that’s impossible,” stammered another one of her crew, the timid Lei in her sunflower yellow. “You can’t be an infected, you’re always safe! You have to be!”

“Y-yeah,” Jess insisted, “You’re the safest person I know!”

“No, no, you don’t get it. I’m not _guaranteed_ to be safe. I’m guaranteed to know when I’m _not_ safe.”

“But I saw you check in!” Luci jumped in again, finger pointing as if armed with the evidence to prove her wrong. “You swiped your card! It’s impossible for an infected to replicate tasks!”

“Oh, come on. Did you see me do it? Or did you maybe… catch me as I left admin?”

“I…” Luci fell silent.

As clear as Box thought she was being, there was still uneasiness in the air. Mack, and Maddy exchanged confused smiles, clinging to the idea that this was all some big prank. Sam and Gus were clearly concerned, the gears turning in their heads and the truth slowly sinking in. But no one said a thing.

“Look.” Box rose from her seat, palms on the table. “You are all in danger if I stay around. What, if my body lashes out and someone dies, will you believe me then?” She took a cautious step away from the table at the thought.

Finally, Kirk in his flaming orange uniform spoke up, placing his pet bedcrab Senku on the floor for it to scuttle about nervously. “Well, if you really _are_ infected with the parasite, wouldn’t you NOT want to tell us? After all, the objective of the alien is to cause mayhem and confusion among our crew, get us to blame each other, and reduce our numbers. See, an _infected_ doesn’t talk or think like that.” He looked to everyone else smugly for support, reinforced with a couple weak nods.

Box, fighting her hand’s urge to skip on her voting tablet, stalked around the table, to which Kirk leaned back anxiously. “Hah, look at you. ‘See, a _crewmate_ doesn’t lean away from fellow teammates like that’, hm?”

“You just startled me!” the man in orange insisted. “I have no reason to be scared of you, Commander, and no reason to think you’re infected just because you say you are! God, you commanders are all the same…” A couple of other people around the table gave him a look, and his rant was reduced to a mumble.

Frustrated, Box pinched a patch on her uniform, a white and blue design not seen on any other uniform around the table, and pulled her sleeve out towards Kirk. “Do you want to know why you can always trust me on these missions? Why I’m the person everyone on this crew believes? Why I’m usually not the person we eject or suspect? Look at this.” She tugged on the patch, her suit crinkling. A simple design, two dark blue triangles with white in the negative space. “This is a marker patch that was commissioned for me. It’s the mark of a special medical condition. Dr. Heath, the _head doctor at MIRA,_ calls it ‘Expergiac Syndrome’. And it means that I know when I’m infected.” She let go of her uniform with a snap, and took a step back.

But Kirk scoffed. “Now you’re dropping names? And you ‘know’ when you’re infected? _No one_ knows when they’re infected, they’re too busy being dead! I had my training just recently, you know, I remember the parasite classes they taught. The parasite takes over the entire host body, one system at a time, fast enough so that you’re dead before you can stop it! The only one who knows that you’re infected is the parasite.”

Something burnt white-hot inside of her; a familiar sensation, one she had worked hard to live with and prevent from coming to the light. But Kirk’s cocky, know-it-all tone brought back some emotions she worked hard to assuage. “Never assume that training will teach you everything,” Her voice went quiet, brimming with energy. “… and never assume you know everything. Ever.” Kirk shivered at the look in her eyes.

“H-hey, guys, chill…” Mack stepped in, looking worried. “We all remember our training, dude, but…” His eyes hovered on the patch. There was an unusual fear in his eyes, his inhuman eyes.

“I-I know all of the medical patches,” blurted Jess, staring at the patch on Box’s arm. “That’s one of the things I’ve been, uh, s-specifically trained on. It has the gold medical border on it, see? But I still don’t know what that patch means. Blue… Th-there’s a lot of blues on medical patches. But that dark blue… uh, I don’t know. B-but white is usually only on Doctor’s patches, higher-up’s patches, or very important medical affliction patches. Means that it’s important. Or the person’s important. The white would usually match the suit color. But the white means something’s important. A guy named K. Matthews had serious osteoporosis and his medical patch was off-white and white…”

"Yeah. So the dark-blue means I have Expergiac Syndrome." Box explained, to which Jess nodded thoughtfully.

Kirk’s irritated grumble became loud enough to understand, "Ohh, eXpErGiAc sYnDrOmE, because you’re _aaalways_..."

“Hey!” Sam snapped, stopping his complaints in their track. “Be professional! We can’t work with a rookie attitude here.”

“Yeah, just ‘cuz you’re the Data lead doesn’t mean that you have the data about everything and everyone! Isn’t this your first actual mission?” added Luci with a sneer. “This is my seventh! Shut up, _Payne_ , you’re such a pain. Heh…”

And then came the arguing. Kirk puffed up to defend himself. Luci hounding him. Lei was looking around the table, pleading and repeating, “Calm down, please, just calm down!” The volume was escalating, and Box was standing dumbstruck away from the table. They were flooded with denial, a will to distract themselves and move on. She could feel a satisfied grin hiding under her spacesuit, devilish and manipulative.

_“It’s winning.”_

Now they were squabbling, Maddy having jumped in to defend Luci and Sam, with Gus trying to interject with notions on trying to figure out who was the infected and being shut down by the bickering Kirk and Luci. Nate looked like he wanted to jump in but didn’t want to risk saying anything. Sam was trying to reign everyone in. The timers on their voting tablets were ticking. Their time on the ship was limited. Her crew’s time was limited if _something wasn’t done_.

“ _ENOUGH!_ ” Box yelled, silencing her crew. They all whipped around to look at her, wide-eyed. “ _What_ are you guys doing!? This is what the infected wants! It WANTS you to argue! But I don’t want you to sit here and argue, especially when you KNOW who one of them is! When there’s two of them we need to fight here! When I, the one crewmate that we can trust, told you _exactly_ who it is!”

A moment passed. “B-but we don’t know for sure!” insisted Kirk.

“Well, then what is it you need? Proof?” She planted her feet and crossed her arms. “Damn, I shoulda known! I myself work only with verifiable proof and solid testimony, so why didn’t I think to know my crew would want proof for my claims?”

“Hold up-” Mack tried to interject, but there was no interrupting her.

“We all know any solid assertion has gotta have proof. I’ve gone and drilled that in your heads. But _you know_ , knowing that my flesh might spring out on a spastic twitch and rip one of you in half isn’t proof enough, I get that! So…” She began to walk backwards, arms crossed, keeping eye contact with everyone. “Let’s bring about some undeniable proof. Hey, do you wanna sit on admin table, Kirk? You’re our data analyst, you should be able to analyze admin table and figure out what’s happening.”

“Box…?” Lei asked shakily. “Where are you…”

“The vent…” Gus breathed. “The cafeteria vent.”

“Ding, ding, ding! Gus gets a cookie! See, they taught us in that Infected Seminar that you crewmates can’t fit in the vents because of your skeletal system, right?” Box prodded. “Our shoulders are too wide and too dang solid. _But_ , an _infected_ -”

“Th-the parasite dissolves the skeletal system, allowing them to fit in the ventilation shafts…” Kirk recited. Then what he said struck him. “You aren’t-!?”

Her foot landed on the vent. The flesh under her skin seemed to sense the vent, its way out, a path it was conditioned to escape through. Accompanied by a symphony of screams and shouts of surprise, her body collapsed and slithered into the vent. It was weird to feel like a writhing mass of tentacles. She much preferred the familiarity of a set of bones.

She was blinded by the lights of the admin room in less than a second. It took only a moment for her inner flesh to tense back up in the shape of her old, dead body. The ruckus in the meeting room could probably be heard in the bottom of the storage room.

 _“That should convince them. And you lost, you filthy little impostor...”_ She could feel her flesh thrash in absolute fury. With a reserved smirk, she walked out of admin and returned to the meeting she had so rudely left.

Lei was crying. Kirk was shaking. Nate’s hands were covering his eyes. Jess looked shattered. Maddy had fallen out of her chair. Luci was frozen. Mack wore no expression. Gus looked resigned. Sam had lunged forward, standing over the cafeteria vent. And Box stood in the door to the cafeteria, smiling at them all.

“Welp, now that we got that cleared up, let’s get to voting!” With that, Box strode back to her seat and picked up her voting tablet. The table around her was electric with terror, but they finally seemed to accept it. As the votes began to cast, something in her finger twitched. Her voting tablet bleeped.

_“Ah, dang it. Stupid parasite managed to make me hit skip.”_

But yellow hadn’t voted yet. Lei, the poor girl, was trembling and still crying. Her gloved hand was hovering over the screen of her tablet, refusing to vote, and she was looking right up at Box, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Hey, hey, mate, what’s wrong?” Box spoke gently, setting down her own voting tablet.

“You’re… you’re…” Lei sniffled. “You… You’re both dead and alive right now. And we’re going to kill you now. We’re going to lose you just because you got infected once! And you’re just being so calm!” Lei couldn’t speak anymore, and her words were lost in sobs.

“Y-yeah…” Kirk muttered. “You’re about to die. And you told us that, knowing we would kill you, being all… snarky. And now you’re just joking around again!”

“Ah… yeah…” Box nodded. Maddy put a comforting arm around Lei, who sniffled once more and cast her vote. The results were cast to the central screen. Nine votes for Box, and one red vote for skip. “Listen, it’s gonna be okay, alright?” She rose from the table. “I’m just calm because I know it’s gonna be fine. You all can afford to lose me, but the crew can’t afford to lose any more of you.”

“ _We_ can’t afford to lose _you_!” Luci interjected. “You’re the only one we can trust! You can’t just say ‘ohh, you can afford to lose me, it’s fineeee,’ _no it’s not fine!_ You have that… frickin, what’s it – Expunge-iac Syndrome!”

“Stop,” Box interrupted sternly. “See what happened when you didn’t believe me last time? Kidding, but seriously. You’ll be fine. I’ll be back.”

“You’ll be back?” Jess stood up too. “How? What? You’re not-?”

“Yes, I will. Promise.” She winked at everyone. “And you could call it reincarnation, or that I never really died, what have you, but we call it ‘Classified’. ‘Cause it’s classified right now. You might learn about it soon, but that’s not up to me.” Jess had a look of knowing in his eyes, but said nothing. The only noise that responded was the quiet whirr of the ship. “Hey, usually the Commander and the Security Lead drag the infected to the airlock, but I guess one of those is out of commission. Can I get an Attendance Lead up in this process too?”

Kirk tilted his head as he and everyone else rose from the table. “Wait, but isn’t it usually-”

“The Attendance Lead. C’mon Mack, let’s eject this impostor.” Mack seemed concerned, but stood up bravely and joined Sam in her grip of Box by the arms. The three of them began the march to the airlock, and everyone else followed in silence.

 _“Man, it’s hard to keep them upbeat. Can’t I just guarantee a safe journey for them?”_ With the eyes of the parasite, she had spotted the other, and she knew who had to go down with her. As they opened the internal airlock doors, she flashed her confused and worried crew a crooked grin. “Luci, take over the Commander tasks for me. And hey, Nate, you _might_ want to do the attendance tasks before we land… just a thought.” Her words were almost drowned out by the alarm of the opening airlock.

“Wait, what-!?” Mack yelped.

And before it could react, she grabbed Mack by both arms and spun it into the airlock, the doors closing tightly behind them both.

The shouting from the other side of the door was muffled, but it soon turned to screams as what used to be Mack lost its shape in rage, slamming against the sturdy door of the airlock and howling. _“You can’t do that! Cheater! Cheater!”_

“Who’s the impostor now, you fucking parasite!? It was ME!” Box bellowed at the other infected, a satisfied smile egging the other fiend to wail on outrage. Just as her own body began to lose its shape in a spastic attempt to break free, the alarm blared once more.

Then everything was silent.

_“God, that last line was so corny… I’ll do better next time.”_

Then everything was black.

* * *

Crew-10613

_To be filled out by Security lead, Attendance lead, Defense Lead, or Commander. (See full Incident Report Form)_

Last Name

| 

First Name

| 

Lead

| 

Suit Color

| 

Status  
  
---|---|---|---|---  
  
Queen

| 

Elizabeth

| 

Commander

| 

Red

| 

Infected  
  
Braithwaite

| 

Jesse

| 

Medical

| 

Blue

| 

Alive  
  
Mccoy

| 

Sam

| 

Security

| 

Pink

| 

Alive  
  
Norris

| 

Luci

| 

Weapons & Defense

| 

Black

| 

Alive  
  
Osborne

| 

Lei

| 

Navigation & Engine

| 

Yellow

| 

Alive  
  
Owen

| 

Maddy

| 

Oxygen

| 

Purple

| 

Alive  
  
Payne

| 

Kirk

| 

Data & Transmissions

| 

Orange

| 

Alive  
  
Ross

| 

Mack

| 

Attendance

| 

White

| 

Infected  
  
Sharma

| 

Gus

| 

Inventory & Storage

| 

Brown

| 

Alive  
  
Steele

| 

Nathan

| 

Reactor

| 

Green

| 

Alive  
  
* * *

Her eyes slowly opened. She still felt fuzzy, as if she wasn’t there entirely, but a voice buzzing with excitement brought her back.

“…work? I think… I think it worked! Incredible, it worked! Ms. Queen- oh, pardon- Box! Commander Box, can you hear me? Can. You. Hear. Me? Oh, er, if you can, flutter your eyes again if you can hear me.” Well, she just had to comply to that request. The twitch of her eyelids against the blinding LED lights was met with ecstatic stomps that must have been a dance of joy. The voice continued breathlessly. “Yes! YES! _YES_! Remarkable, fantastical, incredible, _remarkable_! Oh, Braithwaite, you simply _must_ come see this! Project Phantom is a success!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! Thanks for stopping by to read this part in my little series. My idea for this universe, this detailed and job-and-lead oriented world, has really been expanding, and I need to give my thanks to my friend Madeleine! I hope the combination of character and world-building adds some complexity you can appreciate, along with a lore that expands on what Innersloth began with Among Us. There is more to come, so I hope you enjoy!


End file.
